Brown fingers in fingerless gloves, she fans and turns the cards.
La Luna.
He rode in through darkness, hard hooves on a red dirt road. Only came in for a beer. Now he’s getting his fortune told, penny for five cards.
Widow spider, crescent moon. “What is this?”
She shushes him. He isn’t used to that. Back home, women bat their lashes, bite their lips for him. Out here, they’re scarce as water. Anyone’s a prize.
La Nopa. Wild-armed cactus tree.
He came west in a buckboard wagon, crossing plains, counting chickens. Left behind his family and birthright, the pink-lipped, wide-hipped girls, for the prospect of glint and glimmer, but all he found were rocks. Didn’t know how to stop digging.
La Calavera. Skull.
Once, he swung his pickaxe. Struck bone, head round as a river stone. Native? Miner? Could’ve been anyone, but he didn’t want it to be him. Maybe he hadn’t believed streets would be paved with the stuff, but he’d thought there might be a nugget left for him.
He swapped his pan to a greenhorn for pennies, hitched a ride with a friar on the back of a long-lashed donkey. Mission-bound, but he wouldn’t stay, not for God nor the hope of stew.
La Muerta. Skeleton.
“No.” Fist to the cards. This won’t be his fate.
Her hand is a bird, taloning his wrist. She turns a sixth and smiles.
El Corazon. A heart – a heartbeat.
Between her lips, a flash of gold. Her mouth is all a-shimmer.
He pulls out another penny. What else of her might shine?
Peggy Riley is a playwright, writer, community artist and lecturer. Her work has been commissioned, produced, broadcast, published and installed. www.peggyriley.com
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